Tuesday, June 22, 2010

OJs Minimize Zesty Campus Zionhass

The Zionhass at Toronto's three universities--U of T, Ryerson and, most of all, York--is such that it is now on international Jewry's GPS. An article about it, in the Jerusalem Post's Friday Magazine, has been posted on the Ceej site. Speaking in particular about the extra-zesty campus Zionhass at York, Jordan Kerbel, the Ceej functionary quoted in the piece, did his best to downplay the Nazi-esque goings-on (Israeli Apartheid Week; Jewish students being forced to flee in what amounted to a mini-pogrom, etc.):

Jordan Kerbel, the national director of public affairs of the Canadian Jewish Congress, stressed that the troublemakers on campus were “small, fringe groups.” “It’s important to remember that the vast majority of students could care less. We’re talking about maybe 200, 300 students out of the 50,000 who attend York,” he said.

Ah, yes. That infinitesimal "fringe" again. The one that's responsible for all the problems. Since the numbers of those actively trying to throttle pro-Israel Jews is so teeny-weeny, the Zionhass is completely containable, right? Especially since the Ceej and two other Jewish organizations, one of which is Hillel, the Jewish campus organization, have come up with such novel and helpful ways to dispel the hatred--like the wildly successful "Size Doesn't Matter" campaign timed to coincide with this year's Israeli Apartheid Week. The campaign was designed to appeal to horny university kids with double entendres about Israel's "size" and oral sex, and according to Official Jew Howard English, it was a roaring success:

“We’re investing huge amounts of money on student activism on Israel’s behalf,” said Howard English, the federation’s director of strategic communications. “The Size Doesn’t Matter campaign, despite the controversy, certainly struck a chord with students who would otherwise not show any interest in Israel. It showed them aspects of Israel they had never thought of before.”

Well, yes. Presumably, they had never before thought of Israel in the context of fellatio, whereas after the campaign they were able to put the two together, no problemo.

It's not entirely clear how that's going to override the "Israelis=Nazis" and "Israel is an apartheid state" bilge that is currently being pushed in many classrooms and lecture halls, but I'm sure Mr. English and the others know exactly what they're doing (or think they do, anyway).

Just for fun (and because I think the OJs are full of horse poopy), I googled the incident about which Kerbel is so cavalier--the York mini-pogrom--and found this by the National Post's Matt Gurney:

...Banging on walls and floors, shouting profane, anti-Semitic slurs (I stress anti-Semitic, not "merely" anti-Israeli), they trapped the students inside the Hillel office. Campus security proved typically useless, and Toronto Police were summoned. Reportedly concerned with the possibility of violence, they escorted approximately 20 students out of the office to safety, through the smugly cheering, chanting crowd. While the police observed nothing warranting an arrest, they should be praised for taking moderate action appropriate to the situation. Indeed, the timely and professional conduct of the police might be the only bright spot in what is a very gloomy story.

Some might be shocked that this has happened on a Canadian campus, but to the Jewish student body at York – large and once proud – it's no surprise. There have been a series of disturbing reports out of York this week. A student active in pro-Israeli advocacy on campus received threatening phone calls at home, promising violence against him and his family. Police are investigating but have so far had little to say. Police were also summoned after a Jewish student was physically assaulted on campus after confronting a group protesting Israeli polices.

It's the latter of these instances that is most illuminating. I haven't been able to verify that it happened at all; everyone I spoke to said that they'd heard about it, but had nothing to offer beyond hearsay and rumour. Nevertheless, the reports of a student being assaulted, even if it was only a minor scuffle, has the Jewish community at York rattled, and rightly so. Such an assault would cross a line that has been very much thinned by the recent heated protests, but which has remained a line nonetheless. If it has been crossed, then it's a whole new ball game, and it speaks to how poisonous the York campus has become for Jews that they are so readily willing to accept this unconfirmed story. No one is shocked at the thought. Indeed, the prevailing sense is one of resignation, of knowing that it was bound to happen sooner or later. Whether or not it has is almost immaterial in that sense – the fact that so many of York's Jewish students feel it could happen is proof enough of a ruinous environment and a fundamentally broken relationship between the students and their university.

One recent York graduate said it best. "When I started at York," he told me, "there was anti-Israel sentiment on the campus, but it was of a totally different nature than what we have now. Back then, the [anti-Israel] activists pushed for a two-state solution." Now, he said, the mood is different: the prevailing sentiment on campus is that, "Israel has no right to exist at all."...

Turns out size does matter. And whether or not Official Jewry cares to admit it, we're dealing with a kind of Judeophobia that's an effing behemoth, and that won't be assuaged until Israel is destroyed.

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Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.